The Covid-19 pandemic has hit the travel and hospitality sector very hard. Startups and corporations operating in distributing travel services are no exception. OYO, MakeMyTrip, Treebo, and Fab Hotels have downsized their workforce to conserve cash while TravelTriangle has laid off over 250 employees.
However, things at TravelTriangle seem grimmer. The company’s board has relieved its CEO Sankalp Agarwal and CTO Prabhat Gupta, according to email communication with their employees. Agarwal and Gupta along with Sanchit Garg had founded the marketplace firm that deals in selling holiday packages.
As per this email sent to employees by Sanjeev Misra who was Chief Operating Officer (COO), Misra said he is taking over as interim CEO TravelTriangle starting May 4. By virtue of the decision of the board of directors of the company at its meeting on 31 December, I will take over as the interim CEO of the company until the board decides on the appointment of a long term CEO. The company will appoint a new CTO in due course, mentions the email.
Entrackr has seen a copy of the email.
Relieving the co-founders who were looking after two top functions of the company is quite a tough call and a sign that the company is grappling with other problems besides those triggered by the Covid-19 crisis.
Queries sent to Aggarwal, Misra, and SAIF Partners on Monday didn’t elicit any response. We will update the post if any of them respond.
Six weeks ago, TravelTriangle had laid off over 250 employees, which is about 50% of its total workforce then. Entrackr had exclusively reported the development in March.
TravelTriangle had raised Rs 93.5 crore from South Korea-based KB Global Platform fund and the Nandan Nilekani-led The Fundamentum Partnership Fund I late last year.
The travel and hospitality sectors have been hit the most due to the ongoing pandemic. With India in its third phase of lockdown, no flights, hotels, and travel activities are being allowed except under special orders.
To conserve cash and deal with the crisis, MakeMyTrip and Ixigo had slashed salaries of senior and mid-senior employees while Fab and Treebo had trimmed their workforce. OYO also let go of employees globally and has furloughed several of its staff as well.
